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The two trees that appear on the lateral columns of the altarpiece and represent Christ's family lineage (Jesse) and his spiritual ancestry (Abraham) are replaced in the veil by the tree of the Cross. The culmination of the redemption is made clear by the quotation from Isaiah: “In that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a banner for the peoples”.
The symbolic interplay between the veil and the altarpiece thus transcends into other meta-artistic directions. In the struggle between painting and sculpture expressed in the Dialogue between Nature and the Two Arts (Juan de Jaúregui, 1618), the altarpiece is volume and body, being versus seeming. Painting replicates:
el arte esencial
es fingir lo natural (…)
la vista engaño y desvelo
essential art
is to simulate what is natural […]
to deceive the eye and unveil